Confessional
by Nightwind
Summary: A continuation of the storyline involving my sort-of-ex-human OC named Sunfall. In Chapter 1, Sunfall has a chat with Wheeljack. In Chapter 2, Sunfall has a chat...and other things...with Prowl.
1. Chapter 1

Nothing fancy. Just something that smacked me in the head today. The continuing "adventures" of my sort-of-ex-human OC named Sunfall. It'll make absolutely no sense if you haven't read my other stories involving her. (That being, "Remembrance" and "The Little Things," both of which you can find here on .)

At first, Wheeljack wasn't quite certain that the flash of mostly yellow that flew past him wasn't a figment of his fertile imagination or a product of mental and physical fatigue. He was busily fabricating replacement components at Ratchet's request, in the wake of a fairly intense battle with the Decepticons. Once the casualties were on their way back to the base, Ratchet had sent down a list he'd composed based on the preliminary reports he'd received from the field medics. Now, a few hours later, Wheeljack had finished the more urgent, essential parts that Ratchet had needed ASAP and was just finishing up some more cosmetic bits that he knew that Ratchet would need eventually.

Wheeljack had been low on energy when he'd begun fabricating the urgent parts, and the harried couple of hours spent in hurried but complex and painstaking fabrication had drained him to the point that he was aware that he'd be receiving warnings from his internal diagnostics soon. So it wouldn't have been entirely surprising to Wheeljack if he had started seeing things. But then he heard the door on one of the three storage closets at the back of his lab click locked, and he figured that the probability of seeing things and hearing things at the same time was fairly low.

Wheeljack took a moment to consider who his visitor might be. The flash had been mostly yellow, but it had been too large to be Bumblebee or Huffer, much too small and not nearly noisy enough to be a Dinobot, and too small, even, to be Sunstreaker. So that left...

He sighed, put down his tools on the workbench in front of him, took a moment to flex his shoulders back because he'd been hunching again, and then headed toward the middle of the three storage closets situated across the back wall of his lab. He tapped lightly on the door. He could have simply unlocked the door and barged in, but that would have been rude. His visitor obviously needed some time to herself. Given her identity, Wheeljack was entirely willing to give her that. Still, he felt compelled to offer some assistance in lieu of completely ignoring her.

"Sunfall?" he said through the door, knowing she'd be able to hear him. "Are you all right?"

"No," came the trembling reply after a moment. "Go away."

Wheeljack sighed, thought for a moment, and then answered, "Look, I need energon. I'm gonna go get some. I'll bring back some for you, too. Just...calm down. I'll be back in a few minutes, and then we can talk if you want. All right?"

Wheeljack figured that would give Sunfall time to collect herself, which was what she usually wanted and needed when a crisis smacked her in the head. He'd learned that if he gave her some time and some breathing space, she was usually much more amenable to talking about whatever it was that was bothering her. This time, Sunfall didn't answer him for a long moment, though. Just when Wheeljack had come to the conclusion that he was going to be ignored, Sunfall chose to answer him in a voice so quiet that he could barely hear her through the door.

"All right," was all she said. Her voice wasn't trembling quite as much as it had been a moment before, but she was obviously still deeply troubled by something.

Nodding even though Sunfall couldn't see him, Wheeljack went off on his errand. Upon his return about ten minutes later, he strode to the locked closet and tapped on the door again.

"Sunfall?" he said. "It's me. I'm coming in."

"OK," she answered in a small voice.

Wheeljack balanced the tray he was carrying, which bore two fairly large containers of energon, against his hip and entered the unlock code into the keypad by the closet's door. The door slid quietly aside, and Wheeljack stepped inside.

Sunfall had the lights on, but they were dimmed. Wheeljack's vision took a split second to adjust from the brightness of the lab, but then he spotted her huddled in a far corner, her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms wrapped tightly around them. She was looking up at him, but her expression was haunted, her eyes wide with...Fear? No, it wasn't fear, Wheeljack concluded. It was uncertainty, he judged, and not a little confusion.

Which, really, wasn't at all unusual when it came to Sunfall. Hiding in his closet, though? That was new. Still, it wasn't unusual for her to run to him when she was troubled about something. She'd told him not long ago that he had "major daddy vibes," and so she felt comfortable with him. Safe, even. Sometimes she helped him with his work, handing him tools and such, and they talked while he worked; sometimes she just sat quietly in his lab, watching him work, absorbing the daddy vibes, as she put it.

Wheeljack didn't mind in the slightest. He didn't consider himself a very good counselor, really, but he did feel somewhat responsible for Sunfall, having been one of the people who had been instrumental in bringing her into the world in her current form. It was the very same sort of responsibility – and, indeed, paternal, protective affection – that he felt toward the Dinobots, so he supposed that he did have some "daddy" experience. It wasn't surprising that Sunfall would pick up on that, especially since the real, human father of half of her thought she was dead. And so, over the nine months or so of her life so far, Sunfall and Wheeljack had developed a familial bond of sorts, upon which Sunfall had rather obviously come to rely. Sunfall leaned on Wheeljack quite often for support, sometimes heavily. Wheeljack didn't mind that in the slightest, either.

And now something had happened to throw off Sunfall's hard-won equilibrium, sending her reeling off-kilter again. Wheeljack had his suspicions about what it might be: When Sunfall felt a need to run to him, the reason nowadays pretty much always had something to do with Prowl in some way, either directly or indirectly. They were dancing around each other. Quietly. Slowly. Very carefully, on Prowl's part, very warily on Sunfall's. Or half-warily, perhaps. The part of Sunfall that was Claire was entirely willing and very eager; the part of Sunfall that wasn't Claire, though, was stubbornly digging in her heels, trying desperately to assert her own will instead of being helplessly dragged into a relationship that had developed, sort of, before she had even existed. That was the trouble, Wheeljack supposed, with being a single individual composed of two completely different – and often diametrically opposed – personalities: What to do when one personality wanted to zig while the other wanted nothing more than to zag?

Questioning Sunfall directly about whatever had happened this time would accomplish nothing, though. That, Wheeljack had learned all too well. But he had also learned that if he didn't push her too hard, she would eventually tell him what was rocking her world, all on her own. He just had to be patient. In the meantime, he sat down cross-legged on the floor, facing her. He handed her the container of energon that he'd brought for her, and then drained his own. Afterwards, as his body and mind assimilated the energy input, Wheeljack regarded Sunfall levelly, making no attempt to conceal his curiosity, but also making no demands that she talk to him.

For quite a long while, Sunfall showed no indication that she was willing or ready to talk. She wrapped her hands around the container of energon that Wheeljack had given her, thanked him absently for it, but she didn't drink from it. She stared at the container, stared at the energon it held, stared at the wall, stared at the floor, stared at anything so long as it wasn't Wheeljack. Wheeljack merely waited; he'd been through this before with her. She'd talk – or not – in her own time, and nothing he could do would convincer her to open her mouth before she was damned good and ready to do so. Eventually, though, she locked her gaze with his, and then she spoke.

"He kissed me," she announced, out of the blue.

Wheeljack just blinked once. Twice. Sunfall wasn't leaping for joy, so he now knew for certain that this was not-Claire who was talking to him, and that was an important piece of information to know when talking to a person who was really two people. He also knew who the "he" of whom Sunfall spoke was. It could only be Prowl. And it wasn't as if Wheeljack never would have thought such a thing might happen between Sunfall and Prowl, given that he knew without a shadow of a doubt that Claire wanted it to happen, and he was fairly certain that Prowl wanted it to happen just about as much as Claire did…

"Right there, smack in the middle of the Control Room," Sunfall was adding tonelessly, meanwhile. "In front of a dozen witnesses, at least."

But _that_ was unexpected. Very unexpected, even. Public displays of affection were not something that Wheeljack or, likely, anyone else would ever associate with Prowl. It was so unexpected, in fact, that Wheeljack felt perversely compelled to ask, "Are you sure it wasn't Bluestreak?"

Sunfall speared Wheeljack with a deeply unamused glare, and then Wheeljack felt compelled to mutter an apology. Sunfall was quiet for a moment after that, but then she continued her story.

"He'd just come in from the battle," she said, "and I was relieved that he was all right because I'd heard that it was a bad one and that there were a lot of casualties. Every time he goes out there, I worry because Claire worries. She prays to her god that he comes back. But I…Well, sometimes I hope that he doesn't come back. Isn't that awful of me?"

Wheeljack shrugged. "Maybe," he answered. "Maybe not. I can sort of understand it. It would make things easier for you, in a way, if he…wasn't here."

Sunfall smiled fractionally at that, took a moment to take a sip of her energon, and then, setting the container aside, she answered, "Oh, I don't think so. Because then I think Claire would totally lose it. And then where would I be?"

Wheeljack knew a rhetorical question when he heard one, so he didn't answer, and Sunfall settled back into telling her story.

"Anyway, I went up to him. I hugged him. I don't really know why. Claire wanted to, I guess. And then he kissed me. Just like that. And it wasn't just a friendly peck or anything. Went on forever, it seemed like. People were hooting in approval. Loudly. And it was…Wow. He's a good kisser. _Very_ good. I saw stars."

Wheeljack chuckled at that.

"Prowl's very good at everything he does," he said. "I'm not surprised to hear that kissing is no exception to the general rule. And I'm not surprised that people were hooting, either. Some have been waiting to see that happen between you two since…Well, since you were born, so to speak."

Sunfall smiled at that. "Not to mention that betting pool that no one thinks Prowl and I know about," she said, suddenly and momentarily bright; it was a bit of sunny Claire peeking through, perhaps. But then her face clouded over just as quickly as it had brightened, and she added, "But I hope no one's spending their winnings yet."

Wheeljack would have frowned at that, if he could have.

"Why?" he asked, confused. "Prowl doesn't just go around randomly kissing people, Sunfall," he added. "I think that was a pretty loud and clear kind of message. To everyone. And it doesn't seem as if you didn't…" Wheeljack's voice trailed off as Sunfall gave him a troubled look. "You didn't enjoy it?" he asked.

Sunfall pulled in a deep breath at that, held it for a few seconds, and then slowly let it out. She slumped back against the wall behind her, extended her legs out in front of her, and planted her feet comfortably in Wheeljack's lap, for lack of a better place to put them.

"Sometimes," she said with a drawn-out sigh, "I think I should just go away. Let Claire have…everything."

Wheeljack just looked at her, knowing that she would say more.

"He wants her," she said simply. "She wants him. Me? I just gum up the works."

Wheeljack murmured wordlessly at that, but then pointed out, "But without you, she's incomplete."

Sunfall gave him a resigned look. "I know that," she said simply. "That's why I haven't gone away. I can't, really. Because I'm incomplete without her, too."

"Yes, that's true," Wheeljack agreed, nodding. For a long moment, he thought about not saying anything else. He thought about not pointing out to Sunfall what was, to him, blatantly obvious. But at the same time, he knew that she needed to hear it, even though she might not want to. So he further asserted, "And I think that Prowl knows that, too. And I don't think that he only wants Claire." Sunfall just looked at him, frowning disbelievingly, so Wheeljack continued. "Look, you know how Claire feels about Prowl, right?"

"Um," Sunfall answered, "I'd say that's pretty obvious to just about everyone, much less me. She adores him. Is infatuated with him. Loves him to distraction. Has for years."

"Yes," Wheeljack replied readily, nodding. "Yes, but what about the opposite side of the coin?"

"Well, uh…" Sunfall temporized. "Well, given what just happened up in the Control Room, I'd say that's pretty obv—"

"Ah, ah," Wheeljack interrupted, holding up a remonstrating finger. "Prowl kissed _Sunfall_. Not _Claire_." When Sunfall just frowned at him uncomprehendingly, he continued. "Look, she was seven years old when they met. In some ways, she's still seven years old to him. She's just the little human girl who, once she got to be a teen and the hormones suddenly kicked in, developed this huge crush on him. Followed him around like a puppy. It was very cute. Probably a bit flattering to him, too, although he'd never admit it. And in some ways, she's still just that teenager to him, too."

"But," Sunfall attempted to interrupt, blinking in confusion, "if that's the case, then why did he even bother with—?"

Wheeljack interrupted her in turn, continuing his explanation. "Toward the…uh, end," he said, "I think Prowl was starting to see something more in Claire. A lot more. They had a lot in common and all. But I also know that he's very cautious, that the emotions were very frightening to him, deep down, and I'm pretty sure that he ultimately would have held back from her. Forever. He would've broken her heart. And it wouldn't just have been because she was human and he wasn't. It would have been because, to him, she was and always would be that little girl. Seven years old. Maybe twelve at best." He paused for a significant moment, then added, "But then…she died. And _you_ were born. And _you_ are not entirely Claire. And _you_ are the one he kissed."

When Wheeljack finished his speech, Sunfall was still blinking at him. Plus, her jaw was hanging open as she attempted to assimilate and digest his words. Her mouth then opened and closed a few times as she tried but failed to form words. Finally, she managed to blurt out, "How do you know all this?"

Wheeljack shrugged. "I've known him for a long, long time, Sunfall," he said. "You kinda get to know a guy after a while. Besides, we talk sometimes, too. There aren't many people around here that he'll willingly talk to about more personal things, but he'll talk to me on occasion. I think it's mostly because he knows that I don't turn around and tell everyone what he told me."

"Except that you're telling me," Sunfall pointed out.

"Only because you badly need to know," Wheeljack reasoned. "And he, knowing him as I do, will never tell you. Not in words, anyway."

Sunfall snorted. "No, but he'll give me all manner of vague clues wrapped in out-of-the-blue random kisses, apparently. And I'd dearly _love_ to hear his logical justification for _that_," she said. She paused thoughtfully and added, "He really is a piece of work, isn't he?"

Wheeljack chuckled. "That he is. But he's a good piece of work."

"Mmmmm," Sunfall murmured. And then, after a quiet moment, she added, "So you guys talk. About me." It wasn't a question.

Wheeljack shrugged again. "Once or twice it's been about you, sure," he answered. "Maybe ten times. Or was it five hundred times…?"

Sunfall laughed and kicked him playfully. "Shut up!" she said. "Seriously!"

"Seriously," Wheeljack answered. "Yes, he's talked to me about you. More than once. Just a little bit each time, though. He's not the most effusive guy in the world, you know, and he doesn't let people worm their way through his armor easily. He's let you in, and that's a minor miracle. And I can tell you with some degree of confidence that he doesn't just see you as Claire. Claire might be the…the conduit between the two of you, but she isn't all that he sees in you. Not anymore, at any rate. He sees all of you, Sunfall, and that includes…well, you. You can tell by the way he's treated you these past six months or so."

"How he's treated me?" Claire echoed, confused.

"If he just saw you as Claire – and he's fully aware of exactly how Claire feels about him, I assure you – then what's with the fascinating and exotic mating dance he's been performing lately?"

Sunfall shrugged, at a loss.

"He's trying to convince _you_ of his intentions," Wheeljack answered. "He doesn't have to convince Claire of anything. She's right there with him already. Has been for years, as you said. But he wants you, too. He needs you, even. Because it's you that makes Claire not just that little human girl or that infatuated teenager. You make her…real. Alive."

Sunfall frowned. "I…never thought of it that way," she said thoughtfully.

"Mmmm. Thought not. So now," Wheeljack said, "the question remains, and I notice that you conveniently didn't answer it when I first asked it: Did you enjoy that kiss?"

"Yes," Sunfall immediately answered, without thinking, then qualified the answer further. "No. I don't know. Maybe."

Wheeljack snorted at that and said, "They say that your first impulse is usually the correct one, so I'm going to take that as a 'yes.'"

Sunfall glared balefully at him.

"Did I not say," she growled, "that he's a very good kisser? Just because I enjoyed being on the receiving end of that particular talent of his doesn't mean that…that…"

"That?" Wheeljack prompted curiously when Sunfall's voice sputtered out helplessly.

Sunfall sighed. "You know, you're really annoying sometimes," she accused.

"Don't change the subject," Wheeljack immediately countered.

Sunfall scowled. "Fine," she said peevishly. "You want the truth? Here it is: Just because I enjoyed kissing Prowl doesn't mean that I'm in love with him. I don't even _know_ him, really. _She_ does, though, and I…I…"

"You what?" Wheeljack prompted when her voice trailed off again and she settled into a troubled silence.

Sunfall didn't answer for quite a while. Instead, she balled up one fist and banged it slowly and softly against the floor as she gathered what thoughts she had.

"Sometimes…" she finally said quietly, barely loud enough to be heard over the sound of her fist impacting with the floor, "Sometimes I get really tired of living someone else's life for them. Sometimes I just want a life of my own. I want to have my own past, my own memories. I want to make my own decisions. I want to _not_ fulfill everyone else's expectations. Not Claire's. Not Prowl's. Not _anyone's_. I just want to be me. Except that I can't be because there _is_ no me. Not without her. And with her comes…all of the things that I'm tired of. I'm trapped, Wheeljack, and the worst thing about it is that I know it's a trap from which there's absolutely no possibility of escape. Ever."

Wheeljack winced but didn't say anything for a while after that, mostly because he was suddenly fighting an undertow of guilt. The fact of the matter was that Sunfall was right. She was forever yoked to Claire, as Claire was to her, because neither was a complete personality on her own. They were indeed inseparable, like Siamese twins who shared a vital organ, and if Sunfall was as unhappy as she seemed at the moment, then she was doomed to a long and miserable existence, and it was partly his own fault. But what could he say? That he was sorry? It was too late for apologies, and it was far too late to undo anything that had happened. The only thing that he could do was to do whatever he could to try to make Sunfall less miserable.

"Have you talked about this with Prowl?" he asked gently.

Sunfall gave him an odd look.

"No," she answered simply.

"Why not?" Wheeljack wanted to know.

Sunfall sighed. "Because as much as I'm chafing at living up to other people's expectations, I still don't want to disappoint anybody. You have _no_ idea how hard it was to break that kiss and run the hell away because I knew that in doing so I was disappointing both of them."

Wheeljack thought about that for a moment, then offered, "I think if you talked to Prowl – _really_ talked to him – he would understand. This is a three-way relationship, really, and you all need to be in agreement about how it's going to proceed, if it's going to proceed at all. It's not fair that you should have to suffer or sacrifice what you want in order to make them happy."

"That might be true" Sunfall answered solemnly. "But by the same token, it's also not fair to them to make them suffer or sacrifice what they want in order to make _me_ happy. Is it?"

"I suppose not," Wheeljack said softly. "I suppose there is no easy answer."

"No," Sunfall quietly agreed. "No, there isn't. But I think you're right that I need to talk to Prowl. We need to settle this one way or the other."

And with that, she removed her feet from Wheeljack's lap and abruptly stood. She was halfway to the door when Wheeljack spoke up.

"Wait, where are you going?" he asked.

Sunfall turned around and regarded him as if he was an idiot.

"To talk to Prowl?" she said.

"Now?"

"No time like the present," Sunfall replied with a half-smile. "Right?"

At that, Wheeljack stood himself up, too. He folded his arms over his chest and gave her an approving and encouraging look. And then Sunfall, all unexpectedly, walked back over to him and hugged him.

"Thank you," she whispered as she clung to him.

"For what?" Wheeljack asked, softly and comfortingly stroking her back.

"For everything," she said. "But especially for the things you said about Prowl's…thinking. It helps a lot." Then, after giving him a final squeeze, she let go of the engineer and stepped away from him.

"You're welcome," Wheeljack said warmly. "Good luck."

Sunfall gave him a wan smile, and then she turned and was gone, off on a mission that Wheeljack could only hope would go well. For all of their sakes.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Author's Note Thingy:**__ So, some folks wanted to see the confrontation/conversation between Sunfall and Prowl. I guess I did, too. I had no intention of writing it, really, but then it came to so...So, here it is, along with a bit of Prowl's perspective on the whole Sunfall mess in general. I decided to just tack it on as a second chapter to this story rather than making it its own story. That way, I didn't have to come up with a title for it! Bonus! _

_I popped this over into first person perspective, even though the other part's in third. It seems that I'm on a first-person kick again, thanks to a crackalicious story I'm working on that I might or might not share. Besides, it's always fun to pick around in poor Prowl's wee wittle head. _

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The soft, slow strains of the second movement of Beethoven's third piano concerto washed over me, the flutes and the violins laying down a lyrical, longing melody that soared above muted, slurred arpeggios in the low strings. It was soothing. And at the moment, I needed soothing.

I was keyed up, as usual, post-battle. It would be hours before I was entirely settled and calm again. This, though, was entirely normal. I'd experienced it thousands of times before and would, no doubt, experience it thousands more times in the future.

I was also more than a little uncomfortable, thanks to the stinging but mostly superficial laser burns that marred the width of one door panel as well as the front of one shoulder. They weren't serious enough to bother Ratchet and the other medics with yet, occupied as they were with the seriously and critically wounded. They might be so occupied for the next couple of hours, even, by which time the burns might very well have taken care of themselves. This, too, was normal.

But then there was Sunfall. She was abnormal. Or rather, she had a singular talent for making _me_ abnormal. Try as I might, I couldn't seem to erase from my mind the look on her face as she'd pulled away from me in the Control Room. Her expression had been half pleased and half...something. Upset? Confused? Betrayed, even? Interpreting others' emotions was, to say the least, not my forte, so I still didn't know, even after having spent the last hour or so thinking about nothing else, here in the relative safety and sanctity of my office. Usually when I thought about something in that kind of methodical way, I could puzzle it out. I could organize and mentally label every aspect of any situation appropriately, place all of the elements of whatever was bothering me where they needed to go in my mind until everything was all neatly and rigidly compartmentalized, until everything made logical, rational sense.

Sunfall never made logical, rational sense, no matter how much I tried to _make_ her make sense. Sometimes, I perversely wondered if that exact quality was what made her attractive to me, on the theory that opposites supposedly attracted. If that was the case, it was…strange.

The very reason I'd gotten along with Claire and her brother Chip in the first place was because they, uniquely amongst the few humans I'd gotten to know well, usually made sense. For all that the two siblings had their differences otherwise – one a cerebral and somewhat straight-laced scientist expert in many diverse fields, the other an artistic, free-spirited musician – they both had a talent for making sense, for _not_ being bizarrely…well, human, as every other human seemed to be. Perhaps this made them abnormal amongst their own kind – Chip, at least, had often said that he had more Autobot friends than he had human ones – but it made them excellent companions for me. Their presence didn't ruffle me even in the long term as the presence of, say, Spike, often did even in the short term, even if he didn't say anything. It wasn't Spike's fault; he just had an energy about him that nagged at me and that the Chase siblings entirely lacked. I could – and often had – spent hours with one or the other of them for various reasons, and not only had I _not_ felt ruffled but I had actually enjoyed myself immensely.

But Sunfall wasn't entirely Claire. She had a good chunk of Claire's memories and a number of her unconscious mannerisms, the latter of which was distinctly disturbing at times. She had Claire's wide, bright smile, her lilting laugh. She had Claire's sometimes perverse and always dry sense of humor and also her temper and her tendency to hold stubbornly to grudges. And when Claire was dominant rather than co-dominant or entirely receded, those things brightly shined through in Sunfall, like sunshine piercing storm clouds.

But those occasions were rare now and were only becoming rarer. As time went on, as Sunfall settled into life, the blended personality of Claire and Sunfall was the one usually in control, unless one or the other of them was deeply distressed for whatever reason. It was a deliberate compromise between the two of them. It was the only way, so Sunfall herself had told me, that they could live peacefully together, long-term, sharing a single body.

Yet, many of the Autobots _still_ saw Sunfall simply as Claire, forgetting that Claire was but one facet of Sunfall. But for a select few, like Wheeljack, they didn't seem to realize that Sunfall was an individual all her own. She had her own strengths and weaknesses and a personality that in many ways wasn't Claire's at all. She had opinions, likes, and dislikes that differed from Claire's. She had a penetrating intelligence, a sharp wit, and an equally sharp tongue on occasion. She was more deeply observant and occasionally far more cynical and sarcastic than Claire had ever been. For all that she was basically brand new, she was more mature than Claire had been at her death, and she was already world-weary on occasion, likely a by-product of her circumstances.

And as Sunfall had begun to discover herself over the eight months of her life so far, I had simultaneously discovered an appreciation for Sunfall as _Sunfall_, completely separate from Claire. Sunfall not being Claire was actually freeing in some ways, albeit vastly confusing and disquieting in many other ways, and the confusion and the disquiet prevented me from telling Sunfall how I…felt.

I had, admittedly, been developing deeper feelings for Claire a few months prior to her death. The emotions had been unfamiliar and therefore unsettling, and it had taken me quite a while to admit to myself that I'd had them at all. Once I'd made that admission, I'd spent long hours trying to figure out what, exactly, to _do_ with the emotions. I had eventually come to the conclusion that to do anything about them at all was ultimately futile, that all possible courses of action could only end badly. Even if things worked out perfectly, Claire would be dead in a matter of five or six decades. Human life spans registered as a few blinks of an eye on the Cybertronian time scale, and to become entangled with so ephemeral a creature was asking for emotional turmoil that I wasn't sure that I could handle. Distance from everyone had its distinct advantages. It meant less pain. It was selfish, perhaps, but it had served me well.

Still, I'd been entertaining thoughts of going ahead anyway, somehow. A small but vocal part of me argued that I was fighting a war and that because of that there was no guarantee at all that I would outlive Claire. So, this part of me argued, both of us should take what we could get while we could get it. I had been edging ever closer to accepting this argument, day by day, had even begun tentatively formulating a plan to put the logic to good use, but there had still been doubts in my mind. Manifold doubts. So, I had said nothing to Claire, thinking that I had time to carefully resolve all of the issues in my mind before adding her into the equation.

But in reality I hadn't had any time at all. Suddenly and unexpectedly, Claire had been killed. As painful and as difficult as that had been for me, there had also been, briefly, a sense of guilty relief. I had thought that Claire's death would put an end to disturbing and crippling doubt and indecision, two things that I otherwise never experienced. I had thought that I could move on, that I could simply clamp down further on my emotions and, this time, never let anyone in again. Ever. I could truly become the cold and unfeeling individual that many perceived me to be. The notion was greatly appealing, actually.

Except that the indecision hadn't ended at all. I'd had a few weeks of a reprieve, but then, reborn as part of an Autobot, Claire had, in a way, continued to plague me. Or maybe "plague" was too negative of a word. Emotions were not my forte, so when the more troubling amongst them assaulted me, I _did_ tend to think of them as little plagues, indeed. But Sunfall wasn't a plague.

At first, I'd been attracted to her because, like practically everyone else, I had seen her simply as what was left of Claire, and I had wanted to cling to that for entirely selfish reasons. There had been all sorts of simple if/then logic involved. If Sunfall was Claire, then Claire was still alive. If Sunfall was Claire, then I could forgive myself for my part in her death because she hadn't really died at all. If Sunfall was Claire, then I could still be a part of Claire's life and she could continue to be a part of mine. The if/thens were comforting. It was classic, basic logic resting firmly on what I had thought was a valid premise. It was soothing in its simplicity, like the Beethoven piece that was playing.

But slowly, as Sunfall had come into her own, I had begun to recognize her as the new and different individual that she was, and I realized that the premise upon which I'd been basing my logic – that Sunfall was Claire – was flawed. Worse, I'd found myself beginning to deeply appreciate Sunfall for her own merits. The problem was that, once that had happened, there was no longer any simple, reasonable if/then logic to the attraction. Rather, the attraction was something that simply existed for no apparent reason, and this, more than anything, was disturbing.

So rather than being freed of pesky, annoying emotions and the inconvenient and sometimes paralyzing attachments that they wrought, they were instead only intensifying at a rate proportional to the amount of time that I spent in Sunfall's company. Realizing this, I'd very logically attempted to avoid her as much as possible for a while, but I had discovered that to do so was impossible because I had found myself seeking her out anyway, against my own better judgment. The result was that I felt completely out of control at times, which was even more disturbing than an attachment that had no logical basis. So, if I avoided Sunfall I found that I was more disturbed than I was if I just went ahead and spent time with her. It made no _sense_. Whatsoever.

When I had mentioned this to Wheeljack once, he'd said that often the hallmark of love, when it was truly real, was precisely that it made no sense whatsoever. I had chewed on _that_ for a good long time; it still wasn't sitting well with me, although I was beginning to believe that it was true.

The trouble was that I had difficulty discussing emotions and attraction, much less expressing such things. Particularly, I had trouble talking about such things with Sunfall herself. This was compounded by the fact that I knew that Sunfall was wary of me, that she thought that I was interested in her only because of Claire, and I hadn't yet had the courage to disabuse her of that notion. She resented the automatic assumption that she was simply Claire in a different body, and more and more as time went by, I could understand her resentment. She was quite obviously frustrated by the fact that she was, in a way, not in control of her own life, that she was almost being compelled to live someone else's life, that those around her only seemed to appreciate her because of Claire rather than for her own myriad merits. I could relate to the feeling of out-of-controlness, and I found that I could empathize with everything else, even though empathy was emphatically not one of my strong suits.

But the empathy, among other things, drew me to Sunfall. Sometimes, now, I found myself forgetting that Claire was a part of her at all. It had been a while since the last time I had looked at her and had seen not the striking Autobot that she was but a small, fragile human female with big, soulful brown eyes. Now, I tended to see only the Autobot, fine-limbed, intelligent, standing out in a crowd thanks to her brilliant coloration, deep gold melting into burnt orange melting into deep crimson. She was just Sunfall to me now, and when I was honest with myself, I could admit that she was very, very dear to me. Every aspect of her, as disturbing and intriguing and occasionally annoying as she was, was very, very dear to me.

I had tried to make her see that today, in the Control Room, as she had walked up to me, smiling a bright, wide, beautiful smile that was undeniably Claire's, as she had wrapped her arms around me in relief. "They" said that actions spoke louder than words, and I had taken "their" advice.

I shouldn't have. Because, after a few long moments of a very enjoyable kiss, during which even the presence of a loud and enthusiastic audience had faded away until I was aware only of Sunfall, warm and willing in my arms, she'd broken the kiss, apparently in something of a panic. She'd backed away from me, her eyes wide with shock and, I thought, not a little fear, and then she had almost literally run away from me. Backwards. My attempts to find her afterwards, so that I could talk to her, had failed. I'd made the rounds of all of her usual haunts, the target range and Wheeljack's lab amongst them, and she had been nowhere to be found. So, I had retreated to my office, my mind in an unaccustomed whirl.

It was still in a whirl, and the whirl was intensifying rather than settling down. Thinking and attempting to rationalize the situation was not solving my problem; it only seemed to be making things worse. I realized that I wanted, _needed_ to talk to Sunfall. The question was: How to find her. Autobot Headquarters was a big place, and it was also entirely possible that she'd left Headquarters altogether. She had a tendency to do that when she felt a need to think. She could be _anywhere_.

Even right outside my office door, apparently. This I discovered as I stood up to go find her. At the same moment that I was standing up, the door slid quietly aside…and there, as if magically summoned by my troubled thoughts, was Sunfall. She stood there, the light from the corridor behind her highlighting her form and shining softly off of her sunset-hued armor. She was standing exactly on the threshold, so that she was neither inside nor outside of my office and so that the door wouldn't slide closed. She stared at me silently, appraisingly. Her eyes were narrowed, and she was frowning slightly at me not in anger or in sadness but in thoughtfulness, her head tilted slightly and inquisitively to the side. I'd been halfway standing when the door opened. Now, I allowed myself to plop back down in my chair, watching her from a safe distance, doing my best to ignore the internal flutter that I felt just because I was looking at her.

For what seemed hours but which was more likely seconds, Sunfall and I stared at each other, frozen. I was trying to decide whether or not it was a good thing that she'd shown up on my doorstep; Primus only knew what she was thinking. Her face was unreadable as she silently stared at me, and then she nodded crisply, as if she had reached a decision about something, and then she was suddenly moving toward me. The door slid closed behind her as she approached me, not stopping until she was close enough that she could bend down and kiss me.

This was exactly what she proceeded to do.

There was no passion in the gesture, though. The kiss was chaste, lasted only a few seconds, and seemed far more curious than anything else. When it was over, Sunfall pulled back from me and then held my gaze for a few more seconds after that. Her expression was thoughtful, her mouth twisting a bit in contemplation, as if she was analyzing a set of data that she had collected.

"I wanted to see," she quietly explained a moment later, still holding my gaze, obviously sensing that I was about to ask her what she thought she was doing, "if I'd feel an overwhelming need to run away."

I blinked at that. In a way, that was one of the reasons why I'd kissed her earlier, too. I had found, not really surprisingly, that I hadn't felt a need to run away from her at all; my initial response had been more along the lines of running away _with_ her, to someplace not quite so public. Obviously, Sunfall had felt quite differently at the time. But now here she was, apparently repeating the experiment that I had run and _not_ running away this time.

Yet.

"And?" I prompted when Sunfall neither moved nor seemed inclined to say anything else.

Sunfall sighed then, straightened, crossed her arms over her chest, and said, "Well, I'm still here, aren't I?"

She was, indeed…but she seemed faintly annoyed about it more than anything else.

"So I noticed," I observed with a small smile.

She frowned at me, eyes narrowing.

"Don't get cocky," she admonished me. "I have _no_ freakin' clue what to do about you."

I sighed, leaning tiredly back in my chair.

"The feeling is entirely mutual, I assure you," I said.

Which wasn't entirely true, actually. There was a very small but quite distinct part of me that knew _exactly_ what to do about Sunfall. It entailed, at the moment, locking the door to my office, gathering her to me, and then putting my desk to a use for which it had never been intended. The rest of me recoiled in appalled alarm from the very notion, though.

Sunfall was snorting at my words, meanwhile. Shaking her head, she paced around to the other side of my desk and then flopped down into one of the chairs there, slouching deeply into it and lacing her fingers over her abdomen.

"Well, I guess the trick, then," she said quietly after a few moments spent staring at me, "is for us to figure out what to do about each other."

"That's…easier said than done," I answered after a moment.

"Tell me about it," Sunfall sighed, all resigned. "Look, I'm thinking we each need to lay a few cards on the table here, Prowl. We've been dancing around…things. And I just…just…"

"Can't do it anymore?" I finished when her voice trailed off uncertainly. When she nodded in response, I assured her, "I know the feeling."

She looked at me sharply, surprised.

"Do you?"

"Why _else_ do you think I kissed you, Sunfall?" I asked exasperatedly in return. "In front of other people? I'm tired of dancing, too."

I watched as Sunfall stood up then and began to restlessly, agitatedly pace around my office. After a minute or so, her thoughts gathered, she faced me again with her arms folded across her chest like a protective shield.

"Claire loves you very much, you know," she announced out of the blue.

"I know," I answered with equanimity, although I blinked at the sudden change of subject. I'd been aware of Claire's feelings for me for a long time, since well before her death. And I knew from various conversations we'd had since Sunfall's "birth" that the salvaged bits of Claire that resided within Sunfall remembered those feelings well, that she was clinging to them as a way of anchoring herself in the confusing reality of her new life. As such, they had not faded. Perhaps they had even intensified. But Sunfall wasn't entirely Claire. This, I knew as well. "But _you_ don't," I added calmly.

Sunfall sighed, and her stiff posture relaxed a little, her shoulders slumping.

"It's not that simple, Prowl," she said, shaking her head sadly. "Sometimes I wish that it was. But it's not as if a partitioned half of my spark is all hers and the other half is all mine and never the twain shall meet. It's all mashed up together, and it only gets _more_ mashed up as time goes on. And on the one hand, I know you really, really well, Prowl. I _love_ you, even. On the other hand, I hardly know you at all."

I nodded at that, knowing and understanding that it was true, but… "The thing that you're not seeing, Sunfall," I said quietly, "is that exactly the same thing is true for me when it comes to you."

She just blinked at me.

"_Think_ about it," I implored her, rising from my chair, walking around to the other side of my desk, and then leaning comfortably back against it. "If we're laying cards on the table here, Sunfall, then here are a few for you: It seems to me that you're busy thinking that I only see Claire in you, but that's not the case at all. I'm very well aware that you…are much more than the sum of your parts. _But_ I only really know one part of you. I'd _like_ to know the rest, if you'll let me. But I don't want you to feel obligated, just because of my connection to Claire. That's not fair to you."

"That's what Wheeljack said," Sunfall quietly said after a moment spent staring at me, still blinking at me.

"And Wheeljack usually gives very good advice," I agreed. "But then, you know that already."

I knew that she and Wheeljack had grown close over the past few months. Wheeljack had a way of talking to people, of putting them at ease, and more than anything, Sunfall needed ease sometimes. I was glad that she'd found herself a confidant, someone mature and more or less emotionally neutral, someone who would make her hear what she needed to hear. Wheeljack excelled at that sort of thing, when he set his mind to it.

Sunfall was nodding, meanwhile.

"When he said that…" she ventured softly, hesitantly, "I said that it wasn't fair of me to…to deprive you and Claire of each other." She looked shyly away from me then, suddenly staring with absorbed fascination off to the side, at the blank wall of my office. Nervously, she shifted her weight from one leg to the other, back and forth at random intervals; it was one of Claire's unconscious mannerisms.

"But like you said," I answered her softly, "you aren't separable. You're all mashed together. What there is of Claire in you is an integral part of you. I can't have the one without the other." I paused, debating with myself for a moment…and then, deciding that I had little to lose, I added significantly, "Moreover, I don't _want_ one without the other."

In response, Sunfall stilled, to the point that she seemed unnaturally still. It crossed my mind that I'd said way too much way too soon, especially when she closed her eyes and murmured a reflexive and almost prayerful "Oh my God." I watched her warily after that, waiting for her to turn on her heel and flee. Part of me wanted to reach out to her and pull her to me so that she _couldn't_ flee. We needed to work this out between us. But I held myself in check, not wanting to spook her more than I'd probably already spooked her. I kept my arms crossed firmly over my chest, and Sunfall didn't flee.

Instead, after a long moment, she opened her eyes and leveled an odd look at me. She was smiling, but her eyes were slightly narrowed in…fear?

"I think you just made Claire the happiest dead person in the universe," she announced.

I gave her a half-smile and said uncertainly, "I…imagine so. But," I added, "it isn't really Claire that I'm worried about right now. I need to know what _you_ think, Sunfall. What you…feel."

Sunfall drew in a deep breath and then let it out very, very slowly as she gathered her thoughts. She started to pace again, but this time it wasn't frantic, upset pacing. It was contemplative, almost meditative. I watched her, knowing that she was struggling with what I'd said, waiting to hear what she'd say in response once she'd thought it all through. Unaccustomed anxiety prickled somewhere in the back of my mind as I watched Sunfall pace the width of my office and waited for her response. Eventually, she turned to face me again, standing a few paces away.

"I feel torn," she announced. "I didn't want to be dragged into this…this _thing_ between you and Claire."

"I know," I said, nodding. "And I understand."

"No, you don't," she asserted. "Not really. You're right that, until today, I was thinking that you only saw Claire in me. But then Wheeljack told me that that wasn't— Oh!" she exclaimed, interrupting herself. She looked at me wide-eyed. "I'm sorry. Please don't be upset with Wheeljack, Prowl. He…told me some stuff. Stuff you'd said to him, probably in confidence. But he thought it would help me to understand and it did and—"

"I'm not upset," I assured her quietly, attempting to interrupt her apologies. She kept babbling, though; I briefly wondered if she'd picked the habit up from Bluestreak.

"And what he said made me think," she was babbling. "And if I hadn't started thinking then I wouldn't be here, and we wouldn't be talking like this, so…"

"Sunfall, I'm not upset," I reiterated firmly as her voice trailed off uncertainly and she gave me an anxious look. "It's all right. I'm _glad_ that Wheeljack told you some things, if it's helping to ease your mind."

"Oh," Sunfall responded, nonplussed. "All right, then. Well, when Wheeljack told me that you didn't see me as just Claire and then you confirmed it yourself, it… Well, it changes…things."

I nodded understandingly. "Because," I said, "it's not about Claire and me anymore. It's about _you_ and me."

"Yes," she said. "And I…I _appreciate_ you, Prowl. More every day, it seems. I tried not to because I wanted so badly to resent you for…Well, you know. But I found that I couldn't. I…can't."

Once again, I was quite familiar with the issues with which Sunfall was wrestling. Mine were slightly different, but overall they were quite similar. Only I had been dealing with them for well over a year now, since before Claire's death.

"But I need time," Sunfall was saying. "We need to take things slowly. And I'm sure I'll try your patience in the interim."

"I can do slow," I assured her. "And I can be very patient." And then I don't know what came over me, really. Suddenly, I was pushing myself away from my desk, reaching for her, drawing her to me. She yelped in surprise, but she didn't exactly fight me. "Sometimes," I amended.

And then, before Sunfall could respond, I kissed her. Just like in the Control Room. Only this time we didn't have an audience, and she didn't run away. Instead, she practically melted against me after a moment, wrapping her arms tightly around me to pull me as closely against her as possible as the kiss went on. And on. And on. By mutual but unspoken agreement, it ended what seemed hours later.

"You have a very strange definition of the word 'slow,' Prowl," Sunfall accused breathlessly as we separated. Her voice was decidedly shaky.

I shrugged nonchalantly, my arms still wrapped loosely around her small, warm body. "Consider it a preview," I answered.

She stared in dismay up at me for a beat…and then she started giggling madly.

And then, displaying his usual excellent sense of timing, Ratchet's gruff voice announced without preamble over my office's comm, "A little Bluebird tells me you're looking less than lovely, Prowl. Stop hiding in your office and get your aft down here so I can fix that door panel."

It wasn't a request. Ratchet rarely made requests; vehement demands that he expected to be heeded more or less immediately were much more his style. Without waiting for a response from me, Ratchet closed the connection, and I looked resignedly down at Sunfall. She was looking up at me, her eyes glinting with amusement.

"He knows me far too well," I said with a rueful sigh before she could say anything. "And I'm going to have to have a word with Bluestreak," I added.

She snorted.

"Well, he only told Ratchet the truth, Prowl," she said. Gesturing at my half-charred door panel with her chin she added, "Not only is that not very lovely, but it really doesn't look too comfortable."

Which was an understatement. Still, I wasn't anxious to leave, at the moment. She…felt good. I was quite content to stay right where I was.

"Go on, Prowl," Sunfall said then, determinedly stepping back from me, taking the decision out of my hands anyway. "Go make Ratchet happy. I'm not going anywhere," she added significantly, and there was an implied promise in the way that she was looking up at me.

"We'll talk more later," I decided. I couldn't resist leaning down and pressing a kiss to her cheek, though, before I headed for the door. And as I glanced back over my shoulder, as my office door slid closed behind me, I saw that Sunfall was smiling bemusedly after me. It had, I reflected, been quite an…interesting…day.

* * *

_**After note:**__ If by chance you find yourself curious as to the music Prowl has playing at the beginning of this and you are not familiar with it, you can listen to a recording of it, played by one of my favorite pianists, at the following link. Copy, paste, remove all spaces because this silly site eats links, play/download, enjoy: _

_www. idil biret. net/ Archive /files /Beethoven %20Conc %203 %20 mvt %202. mp3_

_Don't worry; it's a free and entirely legal download. For all that the piece moves like a glacier on Valium, I happen to think that it's one of the most lyrical yet meditative things that Beethoven ever wrote. So, to me, it fit the scene. Practically everything I write for either of these two seems to have a piece or two of (classical) music that goes with it. 'Tis nice to write stories about classical fans…says the classical fan. ;)_


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